[NOTE - REMOVE THIS LINE: To find the web page of your representative, visit https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials - Contact your Senators and Congressional Representatives. Feel free to use this text, but I highly recommend you read through it and make some changes of your own. Senators and Congressmen don't respond to mass boilerplate emails. But if you write an original letter, you will get a response - Original Call to Action: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/us-stop-a-synthetic-nicotine-ban/]
Dear Honorable Senator/Congressman/Congresswoman [Enter their full name here],
My name is XXXXXX and I am a citizen of XXXXX and was born and raised here in the great state of XXXXX. I use vaping products. I am a grown adult and I can make my own decisions. Unfortunately, in the recent 2022 Omnibus Budget Bill, they inserted a provision to ban the sale of synthetic nicotine. Individual consumers who choose to vape rely on access of the manufacture of synthetic nicotine in order to purchase our "e-liquid", which is the fluid that fills up our vape machines in order to let us inhale nicotine in a safe and much less harmful way than tobacco. This also, of course, would completely shut down these businesses that produce these completely legitimate and legal products, cost potentially tens of thousands of American jobs for manufacturing and producing a completely legal and safer product, as the industry would essentially go out of business. I do not want to go back to smoking cigarettes which have tar and, of course, is linked to cancer and a variety of other health problems. In fact, according to RJ Reynolds an additional 254 ingredients are added to each cigarette.
https://rjrt.com/commercial-integrity/ingredients/cigarette-ingredients/
In a standard bottle of "e-liquid" there are only 3 ingredients: two ingredients included on the FDA's GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) list, which is a blend of Propylene Glycol and Vegetable Glycerin, and nicotine for regular legal vaping liquid.
Vaping is much safer than you have probably been led to believe. You may have even heard it has killed some people. This is completely false. The American Vaping Association carried out a study titled "CDC, FDA & Media Contributed to Regulatory Over-reactions in Lung Illnesses." And we all know by now how the CDC & FDA can react in the event of a non-crisis.
https://vaping.org/research-report/cdc-fda-media-contributed-to-regulatory-over-reactions-in-lung-illnesses/
They go on to discuss how there were people smoking a vape substance that was purchased on the black market, and not at any shop, store, or online vendor. It happened to be the ingredient Delta-9-THC (THC) - the active ingredient in marijuana - and not nicotine made in a sterile and safe factory setting, as nicotine vape "e-liquids" are, they were manufactured in someone's bathtub or kitchen in a completely reckless manner. These marijuana vapes can be incredibly strong with anywhere from 60-99% of THC in them, far more than even if someone were to smoke the marijuana plant. Yet, as marijuana is banned in Texas already, any individuals using these marijuana products knew they were potentially risking their health by consuming a product sold on the black market with no regulation or safety measures in place, not to mention breaking the law by using an illegal product.
As, unfortunately for the buyers of this product, the black marketeers had no idea what they were doing and instead of using the standard Propylene Glycol and Vegetable Glycerin mixture for creating a vaping solution, these criminal geniuses added a liquid called Vitamin E Acetate to the formula -- probably because it was cheaper for them to buy (as well as the simple fact that I'm sure they did not care and were only interested in accruing wealth, with no regards for the end users of these products). Well, unbeknownst to them, and the eventual consumers of these products, suffered and continue to suffer terrible health effects. Although you might assume Vitamin E is good for you, when it is heated into an aerosol and inhaled - which is how vaping devices work - it absolutely destroys your lungs. No legitimate "e-liquid" nicotine producing companies have EVER used Vitamin E acetate in their products. According to the authors of study from the American Vaping Association I mentioned above, they say the following:
"The authors found that the CDC “initially suggested that the cause of the outbreak was nicotine vaping,” though case studies were indicating that the majority of vaping-related lung injuries were among persons that had used vapor products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and vitamin E acetate. The CDC, FDA and news media “were slow to report the evidence on the role of cannabis vaping.”" and that there results and conclusions read as follows:
Results: The CDC initially suggested that the cause of the outbreak was nicotine vaping because the outbreak followed a large increase in nicotine vaping among US adolescents. Case-control studies revealed that the majority of cases had vaped illicit cannabis oils that were contaminated by vitamin E acetate. The CDC’s public advice and the media were slow to report the evidence on the role of cannabis vaping. Popular government regulatory proposals-bans on sales of nicotine flavours and vaporizers-were based on the assumption that nicotine vaping was the cause of the outbreak.
Conclusions: Media reporting in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom of the US Centers for Disease Control’s analysis of the causes of the e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury outbreak contributed to regulatory over-reactions to nicotine vaping by the public health community.
Well, the CDC eventually posted a 'partial' retraction as they didn't mention Vitamin E in the headline of their story.
Outbreak of Lung Injury Associated with the Use of E-Cigarette, or Vaping, Products
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/severe-lung-disease.html
Basically, they go on to discuss their findings the cases of serious lung injury caused by inhaling Vitamin E acetate into the lungs and they only found cases of it of illicit THC vaping users, and NOT as had been previously mentioned, people who use the legitimate nicotine based vaping liquids.
Secondly, I realize there has been an uptick in teenagers and adolescents getting into vaping and we, of course, want to do everything we can to prevent that. But we can treat it exactly the same as a person purchasing tobacco based products like cigarettes and cigars, and at every vape shop I enter, they check my ID to make sure I am of age to purchase their products. But teenagers are always going to go after what is "forbidden" to them, it's simply just adolescent behavior to rebel. But, by cutting off their supply to these products by putting in place common sense legislation to check an individual's ID before making a purchase and punishing those who are not doing proper ID checks.
I suppose it might even be less harmful to their overall health as generations in the past have primarily used cigarettes and dipping tobacco, both of which we all know are incredibly detrimental to one's health if used in the long term. So, of course, a simple resolution to the problem of teenagers having access to these vaping products is to require a copy of a person's driver's license at every sales point for vaping products. There's no need to remove a substance enjoyed by tens to hundreds of thousands of American adults and giving former tobacco smokers a chance to quit safely and easily.
E-cigarettes and vaping products can and have been shown and proven in multiple studies to help tobacco smokers quit smoking tobacco, as they switch to vaping and slowly taper down their dosage of nicotine to they feel they don't need any. Even the CDC and NIH have indicated this:
Adult Smoking Cessation—The Use of E-Cigarettes (CDC)
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2020-smoking-cessation/fact-sheets/adult-smoking-cessation-e-cigarettes-use/index.html
E-cigarette use may lead some to quit traditional cigarettes (NIH)
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/e-cigarette-use-may-lead-some-quit-traditional-cigarettes
I don't believe the government should have the right to say what I can put into my body, especially if it is a perfectly legal substance that they keep trying to superstitiously ban.
Earlier last year, the President also tried to subvert and interfere with the legal usage of vaping and the purchase of "e-liquid" by banning it to be sent through mail -- sold by vendors online -- and although this legislation is still in legal limbo, while the ban was in place it put a lot of large vaping related websites I used to visit went out of business completely, as they were unable to operate.
USPS Vape Mail Ban Explained (The Electric Tobacconist): https://www.electrictobacconist.com/usps-vape-mail-ban-i285
In fact, one of our previous commissioners of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, attempted to ban vaping, but went on to resign and become a board member of Pfizer, which owns the patent and just happens to sell the anti-smoking drug, Chantix, which earned the company $997 million in sales in 2018 alone and was sold at the time out of pocket cost of over 400 dollars a month.
https://www.pfizer.com/people/leadership/board_of_directors/scott_gottlieb-md
Price of Pfizer's smoking-cessation drug Chantix doubles in just 5 years: report
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pfizer-hikes-price-smoking-cessation-drug-chantix-106-5-years-report (FiercePharma.com)
So, whether individuals are vaping to quit traditional tobacco products or casual users like me who simply enjoy the pleasant and positive overall feelings associated with vaping nicotine should be allowed to continue their hobby, and give smokers a chance to finally get off cancer and severe health causing tobacco products, this ban on synthetic nicotine makes no sense and is just going to drive people back to buying harmful tobacco products.
Please urge leadership to remove this language from the final budget bill. This is a cynical attack to further constrict the marketplace to a few wealthy and powerful companies--incumbent tobacco companies that are responsible for millions of early deaths from decades of misinformation about cigarettes. Again, looking back at information from our own CDC "Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day."
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm
In that same time frame of a single year, 2019, the CDC claims that 34 people died from the usage of e-cigarettes and vaping. They have released no other data about other deaths from vaping, as far as I am aware.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p1028-first-analysis-lung-injury-deaths.html
The difference in the safety profile of traditional tobacco products and vaping products is of huge significance. So, clearly, the danger of the continued legalization of tobacco products is far more harmful to the American population who continue to smoke than those. But, because of the government's reliance on the 'sin' tax of allowing people to continue to consume these products that has been proven over decades to cause great bodily harm and death to these people all in the name of accumulating more revenue, instead of any concern shown to the health and welfare of smokers. However, I am not advocating for the ban of tobacco, just merely pointing out the facts of the matter.
The banning of synthetic nicotine is completely unnecessary and unwarranted, backed up by both by the science and the fundamental American right to their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Thank you for considering my comments and taking the time to read through my reasonable argument against this prohibition. I look forward to hearing back from you on this issue and, hopefully, to your opposition to this proposal. I appreciate all that you do as a civil servant and dedicating your life to the continuation of the American traditions of democracy, good moral values, and the help you provide to the citizens in the state of XXXX and the United States of America.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your email]
[Your phone number (optional]
